Yea they both were good but they were Animated Series/Movie based on a game, and there has been a few really good ones and really really shitty ones (Tekken for example)
More advertisments with hip dressed posers holding there new console and looking all edgy with there semi-emo coolness just dripping from the photo...
more titties and celebrities who got paid more than what you make in a year for giving a little blurb about some game that "Omg I think its like totally cool"
More sidetalking taco goodness.
More articles that just make gamers look like morons who will snap up whatever POS they are hocking just because some guy name "Extreme Tony" who is as hip and cool as the guy in ad for a sidetalking taco says we should buy it.
Personally I believe a world populated with Taco shaped video game consoles will be the next generation of gaming. Either that or a Lay-z boy that with a build in gaming rig all on wheels.
Personally, every MMORPG I have played save Shadowbane has had WASD movement or at least had options to change to WASD, with mouse used for turning/looking around, whether you played in First Person or Third Person. The point and click method was messy, especially when you got in really hairy fights with lots of guys around.
So I actually just read the article and it definately looks like the Asia team is willing to impliment alot that (imo) should have been in the game in the first place.
Biggest problem was the point and click movement which was something that tons of people bitched about and what alot of people never got use to. There should have been at least the option to Go WASD , wolfpack stated that the keyboard commands would cause too much lag so they went with the single click movement instead. (Not sure if that was all just bullshit or not)
The user interface was always fairly customizable you could pretty much drag buttons anywhere on the screen , if they make it even more friendly to use thats a plus.
Redesigns of Islands is a great idea and honestly should have happend right after beta. As well having more monsters out in the farther areas is an idea that should have been implimented from the get go, you can seriously run around for hours and not see a monster at all in some areas.
Looks like they want to add more focus to PVE into the game, or at least making it a bit more enjoyable, since as much as the game might want to deny it, you have to PvE alot to farm gold for your towns. Why not make it a bit more fun while doing it.
They had a great concept but the game was plagued with many problems.
Stability during large scale PvP conflicts, I remember one incident quite well that took place on treachery, a large force of Shadowclan, KGB and other clans was heading to attack a Covenant of Swords town, COS caught wind of the attack (not that hard considering there is only one portal you can jump from continent to continent from) so they intercepted the attacking force. As the armies approched the game turned into a horrid slideshow where a majority of the combatants got Sb.exe errors or lagged out completely. Those remaining where subjected to a joke of a battle. This happend pretty much every time a large force of players met up, and considering that is a huge part of Shadowbane the game failed there. (I understand that things have become more stable but that might just be because alot of people stopped playing the game)
Leveling up failed pretty bad as well. (Which I heard has changed but lets look back a bit) There was very few good leveling spots in the game, on the one continent there was one, and that was crap when you got into your 40's.
Game Economics wasn't that great either, It took a long time to get your city built up costing alot of time farming money (which goes back to the 2nd issue of crappy places to get cash)and it takes very little time to take down everything that you worked for, especially once your Tree of Life is camped by the enemy forces, You can't spawn in your town at that time.
Lastly the fact that there was only one spot to get the commander rune, which was an essential rune for sieging. So for the longest time that rune was monopolized by whoever was in beta and knew where it was.
Instead of the game being crap for 95% of the way through and having an amazing gameplay change at the end they reversed it. Solar Jetman during 95% of the game is an amazing game with great levels and fun gameplay... then right at the end when you have all the Golden Warship pieces the game turns into a shitty sidescroller that you cannot possibly finish because it is both incredibly difficult and bugged as well.
Doubtful.. alot of companies have tried various forms of in game economies based on items and crafts and what not.
Now I can only comment on the MMORPGs that I have played to put this into context. I'll take EQ and DAOC as two examples.. EQ being the bad economy, Daoc being the better.
EQ's economy was the first one I was exposed to, started in beta 3 and played until before the Luclin expansion. It was all about the item drops and not really about the crafted items. (I have heard that has changed) if you found a craft you could make money at it was nerfed, platnium worthless on most servers and only on a few you could use it to buy equipment from other users. The number of rare items and armor unfortunately never really diminished much causing those once rare items to be common place. Look at an FBSS (Flowing Black Silk Sash) for example, a once sought after item is now a few plat or a couple of trades of lower level items. As well the amount of gear and items that just make the FBSS a joke.
DAOC imo had a better economy than EQ, cash was definately useful for a long time, more focus was on crafted items and defense of the realms (which cost alot of money to upgrade and maintain keeps and such, as well people weren't sitting on massive fortunes with nothing to spend it on. As well items and armor degrade and break, not to mention the subsquent additions of alchemy and spellcrafting which also raise the bar of things to spend your hard earned gold on.
played a few other ones, Shadowbane/SWG for example and both of these had some serious economy problems (shadowbane had massive duping bugs causing massive inflation, and SWG has problems with tons of shitty items and no one wanting to buy them.)
anyways anything that will help more MMO's get a better economy i'll be all for it.
At CES they did have a small demo for a few Ziff Davis reporters and what not. 1up.com has the report on that. So there is a machine that plays games and is all shiney looking but its not really about the hardware is it considering its really just a PC. Does the delivery system work, do they have the server for said delivery system do they actually game developers who want to work with this niche product.
If the Troll who posted below is right then they would be looking to make the Phantom certain providers, sort of like PPV in hotels and what not, if this is the case then they need to convey this to the consumer, the "made by gamers for gamers" and every other little tidbit that I have read regarding phantom suggests they do want this to be bought in stores.
but considering most games that had featured real actors have been flakey movie spinoffs I don't think we have too much to worry about, if its a movie based game then what the character would do and whatnot probably has already been established. Other than a few exceptions (like onimusha 3 that has Jean Reno and the likeness of a dead Japanese) I don't think most celebrities will make the plunge into videogames especially if the developers aren't willing to shell out the bucks to have some a-list actors name on the project... tho it would be a dark day if all the production costs went to paying for celebs.....
anyways back to playing Street Fighter the Movie..:P
Would love to go to something like this but it will never happen. A chance to hear some of these great themes, songs and what not played out by a live orchestra would be great.
Some of those songs always give me a nice feeling when I hear them(Crystal Theme for example)
I never figured out why we have a separating rating system for games when there is a perfectly good rating system for the movie industry that could be used.(I assume its some legal hullabaloo)
Anyways alot of Parents don't really know what the video game rating system entails, and because of not really knowing they will let there kid play whatever the hell they want, instead of making an informed decision that maybe that game where you play inmates that dig at each other with rusty hooks might not be suitable.
Now with the Movie rating system most people know what the hell the ratings are , or at least have a general idea. Your not going to let your 13 year old go to the R film (Heck most theatres won't even let your kid in) but the M rating on that game, your not quite sure about.
So what to do.. either raise awareness on what the ratings actually are and entail and make sure that the games get rated correctly (personally I am surprised that Manhunt only got mature) or scrap the system and rebuild from the ground up.
Now I enjoy a good console/PC rpg but if I wanted to pay a monthly fee to get the next part of a story I would be playing a MMORPG. If Xenosaga and.hack are any indication of episodic gaming then they can keep it.
"but would people be as obsessed with GTA3/Vice City if they had no story to speak of? "
Probably not so much, behind the story is a great gameplay but the gameplay is molded by the story. If there was no story line then I could see the gameplay of GTA moving from a single player game to a multiplayer game. Without the story you take away the main reason for conflict so the developers would have to look elsewhere for competition/conflict which would be other players.
Backward compatiblity for me is a big sales point imo. My playstation one died hard when I was playing Suikoden II never got it replaced or repaired instead I just played my PSone games on the PS2. Now I am person who keeps all his old games and I get nostaligic alot so I'll fire up some old games and finish them again.
Now I don't think the Xbox has the same library of games that would I would replay (maybe KOTOR and a few others) but having that option is a strong selling point to me.
Battlezone was more of a hybrid than a pure RTS.. it definately had some great elements of an RTS but the combat was very FPS/Simulator than RTS combat.
Reminds me of Command and Conqueor Renegade. cept a hell of alot better.
"What the same people don't realize is that MMORPGs do not end, thus have no resolution, thus have no story. "
You really should check out FFXI, there is a story that plays out quite nicely in cutscenes as you do quests in each of the realm, these intertwine and tell a pretty decent little story has you hack, slash and make money at the auction house.
Yes i'll make sure i'll file your comments along with the crap about Judas Priest, Dungeons and Dragons and any other scapegoat that the media decided to cling to in order to explain the troubles of todays youth.
"The classic example is that screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre and inciting a panic is not protected speech. Everyone agrees with that."
Your example is flawed when comparing to video games. Screaming Fire in a crowded theatre will more than likely cause a panic and get people injured.
Making a violent video doesn't cause people to get injured nor has it been proven to cause people to start blowing people away. Your analogy makes the assuption that yes violent video games make people more violent.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea they both were good but they were Animated Series/Movie based on a game, and there has been a few really good ones and really really shitty ones (Tekken for example)
Street Fighter:The Movie.. game
Now that was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I second that and would have modded it up if I had some points.
More advertisments with hip dressed posers holding there new console and looking all edgy with there semi-emo coolness just dripping from the photo...
more titties and celebrities who got paid more than what you make in a year for giving a little blurb about some game that "Omg I think its like totally cool"
More sidetalking taco goodness.
More articles that just make gamers look like morons who will snap up whatever POS they are hocking just because some guy name "Extreme Tony" who is as hip and cool as the guy in ad for a sidetalking taco says we should buy it.
More bullshit in general.
Personally I believe a world populated with Taco shaped video game consoles will be the next generation of gaming. Either that or a Lay-z boy that with a build in gaming rig all on wheels.
Personally, every MMORPG I have played save Shadowbane has had WASD movement or at least had options to change to WASD, with mouse used for turning/looking around, whether you played in First Person or Third Person. The point and click method was messy, especially when you got in really hairy fights with lots of guys around.
So I actually just read the article and it definately looks like the Asia team is willing to impliment alot that (imo) should have been in the game in the first place.
Biggest problem was the point and click movement which was something that tons of people bitched about and what alot of people never got use to. There should have been at least the option to Go WASD , wolfpack stated that the keyboard commands would cause too much lag so they went with the single click movement instead.
(Not sure if that was all just bullshit or not)
The user interface was always fairly customizable you could pretty much drag buttons anywhere on the screen , if they make it even more friendly to use thats a plus.
Redesigns of Islands is a great idea and honestly should have happend right after beta. As well having more monsters out in the farther areas is an idea that should have been implimented from the get go, you can seriously run around for hours and not see a monster at all in some areas.
Looks like they want to add more focus to PVE into the game, or at least making it a bit more enjoyable, since as much as the game might want to deny it, you have to PvE alot to farm gold for your towns. Why not make it a bit more fun while doing it.
They had a great concept but the game was plagued with many problems.
Stability during large scale PvP conflicts, I remember one incident quite well that took place on treachery, a large force of Shadowclan, KGB and other clans was heading to attack a Covenant of Swords town, COS caught wind of the attack (not that hard considering there is only one portal you can jump from continent to continent from) so they intercepted the attacking force. As the armies approched the game turned into a horrid slideshow where a majority of the combatants got Sb.exe errors or lagged out completely. Those remaining where subjected to a joke of a battle. This happend pretty much every time a large force of players met up, and considering that is a huge part of Shadowbane the game failed there. (I understand that things have become more stable but that might just be because alot of people stopped playing the game)
Leveling up failed pretty bad as well. (Which I heard has changed but lets look back a bit) There was very few good leveling spots in the game, on the one continent there was one, and that was crap when you got into your 40's.
Game Economics wasn't that great either, It took a long time to get your city built up costing alot of time farming money (which goes back to the 2nd issue of crappy places to get cash)and it takes very little time to take down everything that you worked for, especially once your Tree of Life is camped by the enemy forces, You can't spawn in your town at that time.
Lastly the fact that there was only one spot to get the commander rune, which was an essential rune for sieging. So for the longest time that rune was monopolized by whoever was in beta and knew where it was.
Instead of the game being crap for 95% of the way through and having an amazing gameplay change at the end they reversed it. Solar Jetman during 95% of the game is an amazing game with great levels and fun gameplay... then right at the end when you have all the Golden Warship pieces the game turns into a shitty sidescroller that you cannot possibly finish because it is both incredibly difficult and bugged as well.
So if we use Counterstrike as the model will we learn to fight terrorism by wallhacking and whoring the AWP?
Doubtful.. alot of companies have tried various forms of in game economies based on items and crafts and what not.
.. EQ being the bad economy, Daoc being the better.
Now I can only comment on the MMORPGs that I have played to put this into context. I'll take EQ and DAOC as two examples
EQ's economy was the first one I was exposed to, started in beta 3 and played until before the Luclin expansion. It was all about the item drops and not really about the crafted items. (I have heard that has changed) if you found a craft you could make money at it was nerfed, platnium worthless on most servers and only on a few you could use it to buy equipment from other users.
The number of rare items and armor unfortunately never really diminished much causing those once rare items to be common place. Look at an FBSS (Flowing Black Silk Sash) for example, a once sought after item is now a few plat or a couple of trades of lower level items. As well the amount of gear and items that just make the FBSS a joke.
DAOC imo had a better economy than EQ, cash was definately useful for a long time, more focus was on crafted items and defense of the realms (which cost alot of money to upgrade and maintain keeps and such, as well people weren't sitting on massive fortunes with nothing to spend it on. As well items and armor degrade and break, not to mention the subsquent additions of alchemy and spellcrafting which also raise the bar of things to spend your hard earned gold on.
played a few other ones, Shadowbane/SWG for example and both of these had some serious economy problems (shadowbane had massive duping bugs causing massive inflation, and SWG has problems with tons of shitty items and no one wanting to buy them.)
anyways anything that will help more MMO's get a better economy i'll be all for it.
At CES they did have a small demo for a few Ziff Davis reporters and what not. 1up.com has the report on that. So there is a machine that plays games and is all shiney looking but its not really about the hardware is it considering its really just a PC. Does the delivery system work, do they have the server for said delivery system do they actually game developers who want to work with this niche product.
If the Troll who posted below is right then they would be looking to make the Phantom certain providers, sort of like PPV in hotels and what not, if this is the case then they need to convey this to the consumer, the "made by gamers for gamers" and every other little tidbit that I have read regarding phantom suggests they do want this to be bought in stores.
OMG.... i'm more zonked out than I thought...
Should have said "(like onimusha 3 that has the likeness Jean Reno and Takeshi Kaneshiro as characters.)
remember don't post on fark unless you have had your morning coffee...
but considering most games that had featured real actors have been flakey movie spinoffs I don't think we have too much to worry about, if its a movie based game then what the character would do and whatnot probably has already been established. Other than a few exceptions (like onimusha 3 that has Jean Reno and the likeness of a dead Japanese) I don't think most celebrities will make the plunge into videogames especially if the developers aren't willing to shell out the bucks to have some a-list actors name on the project... tho it would be a dark day if all the production costs went to paying for celebs.....
:P
anyways back to playing Street Fighter the Movie..
Would love to go to something like this but it will never happen. A chance to hear some of these great themes, songs and what not played out by a live orchestra would be great.
Some of those songs always give me a nice feeling when I hear them(Crystal Theme for example)
I never figured out why we have a separating rating system for games when there is a perfectly good rating system for the movie industry that could be used.(I assume its some legal hullabaloo)
Anyways alot of Parents don't really know what the video game rating system entails, and because of not really knowing they will let there kid play whatever the hell they want, instead of making an informed decision that maybe that game where you play inmates that dig at each other with rusty hooks might not be suitable.
Now with the Movie rating system most people know what the hell the ratings are , or at least have a general idea. Your not going to let your 13 year old go to the R film (Heck most theatres won't even let your kid in) but the M rating on that game, your not quite sure about.
So what to do.. either raise awareness on what the ratings actually are and entail and make sure that the games get rated correctly (personally I am surprised that Manhunt only got mature) or scrap the system and rebuild from the ground up.
Now I enjoy a good console/PC rpg but if I wanted to pay a monthly fee to get the next part of a story I would be playing a MMORPG. If Xenosaga and .hack are any indication of episodic gaming then they can keep it.
IT'S A TRAP!! /ducks
"but would people be as obsessed with GTA3/Vice City if they had no story to speak of?
"
Probably not so much, behind the story is a great gameplay but the gameplay is molded by the story. If there was no story line then I could see the gameplay of GTA moving from a single player game to a multiplayer game. Without the story you take away the main reason for conflict so the developers would have to look elsewhere for competition/conflict which would be other players.
Backward compatiblity for me is a big sales point imo. My playstation one died hard when I was playing Suikoden II never got it replaced or repaired instead I just played my PSone games on the PS2. Now I am person who keeps all his old games and I get nostaligic alot so I'll fire up some old games and finish them again.
Now I don't think the Xbox has the same library of games that would I would replay (maybe KOTOR and a few others) but having that option is a strong selling point to me.
Battlezone was more of a hybrid than a pure RTS.. it definately had some great elements of an RTS but the combat was very FPS/Simulator than RTS combat.
Reminds me of Command and Conqueor Renegade. cept a hell of alot better.
"What the same people don't realize is that MMORPGs do not end, thus have no resolution, thus have no story.
"
You really should check out FFXI, there is a story that plays out quite nicely in cutscenes as you do quests in each of the realm, these intertwine and tell a pretty decent little story has you hack, slash and make money at the auction house.
Yes i'll make sure i'll file your comments along with the crap about Judas Priest, Dungeons and Dragons and any other scapegoat that the media decided to cling to in order to explain the troubles of todays youth.
"The classic example is that screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre and inciting a panic is not protected speech. Everyone agrees with that."
Your example is flawed when comparing to video games. Screaming Fire in a crowded theatre will more than likely cause a panic and get people injured.
Making a violent video doesn't cause people to get injured nor has it been proven to cause people to start blowing people away. Your analogy makes the assuption that yes violent video games make people more violent.